


The longest con

by BIFF1



Series: RAREPAIR WEEK 2K16 [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, F/M, Fake Relationship, Kisses, The Flash Rarepair Week 2016, drunk ranting, heads up i did a really quick search on adoption, killerwave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BIFF1/pseuds/BIFF1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin hits a dead end trying to adopt, and then hits the bottle in some dive bar.</p>
<p>A dive bar where Mick Rory is a regular.</p>
<p>Misery loves company.</p>
<p>fake relationship!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The longest con

Caitlin was a doctor for Christ's sakes, she was n expert in her field, she made enough money to be comfortable without thought, she came from a good background, she had never broken the law (just that shoplifting when she was a teenager but it had been a tough time), she didn't speed, she barely drank, she was sweet and caring.

 

Everyone she knew thought so.

 

Well, everyone that wasn't deciding if she was eligible for adoption apparently.

 

“Another.” She raised her fingers as the waitress of the dive bar she had decided to hide in walked by her booth.

 

She had the paperwork spread out on the table in front of her, ringing it with low grade whiskey that would make her father cringe, and tried to find the flaw in her application.

 

She had glowing recommendations from Professor Stein, a genius and well regarded intellectual in any field and one from Joe, the best detective in the CCPD and head of the meta human task force.

She just didn't understand.

 

And the longer she stayed at the bar drinking her whiskey neat, the more she was sure that there must have been something wrong with her, like they had looked into her and known she would be a terrible mother.

 

Like they had looked into her excited nervous eyes and seen her mother.

 

“Leave the bottle please.” She tells the hands that are refilling her glass.

 

There's a huff of sound and a second glass appears on the table and a man sits in the booth across from her after filling the second glass half full.

 

"What's wrong with you?"

 

She narrows her eyes at the man and pushes through the fog of depression she's sinking into with the help of the whiskey and the fact that she was never going to be a mother, “Fuck,” she whispers because the block of man shape turns into Heatwave.

 

He laughs a little, knocking back some of her whiskey before he leans forward and gathers up her glass ringed paperwork facsimiles.

 

"Don't." She reaches out for them but the table is just a little too wide and he's leaning back reading her paperwork.

 

The joking nature in his stance and face drains.

 

He drops the paperwork into a pile in front of her and fills her glass up.

 

“I'm sorry, Snow.”

 

She takes the now dangerously full glass and knocks it back, the burning liquid screaming down her throat.

 

She slams the empty glass down on the table between them, “I just don't know what I did wrong.” she tells him, but he shakes his head.

 

Caitlin reaches for the paperwork and he puts a heavy hot hand over hers to stop her.

 

“You didn't do anything wrong.” He sounds honestly sad for her and it hurts, “These idiots,” he jabs at the symbol for the agency on the paperwork, “They are the ones that are wrong not you.”

 

“I would make such a good nother.” She tells him, a fire in her burning bright for a moment. She grabs the bottle and fills his glass.

 

“I'm sure you would.”

 

He doesn't ask why she doesn't go about getting a kid the old fashnioned way and she's glad of it. She doesn't want to explain her reasoning again. She wasn't dating anyone, she wasn't willing to engage in a one night stand for the sole purpose of getting knocked up ( and she certainly didn't want to risk a meta pregancy). There were too many unknown variables.

 

He didn't ask her why and she smiled a little at him when she realizes that misery really does like company, doesn't it.

 

Words start pouring from her mouth, how hard the adoption process was, lamenting the fact that she would never be a mother.

 

All the men she loved where either dead or gone back to a different earth. He thankfully didn't ask for clarification on that. She didn't think she could manage it without a chalk board at this level of intoxication.

 

They just drank and he let her rant until he's sitting nect to her in the booth. He'd started sitting next to her some time early after coming back from the bar and before the tears had started to roll down her face.

 

Mick puts hot hands against her skin. They are sitting so close now, it's been hours of drinking and complaining and the anger in her has burnt off and all that was left behind was this horrible empty feeling.

 

“This is all there is.” She whispers as he brushes her tears away. They were achingly close and he is looking down into her eyes like he can see something past all the sadness, “I'll never be a mother. Maybe it's for the best anyway... I'd probably be terrible.”

 

“No.” He tells her firmly, “You'd be a great mother.”

 

She can feel the ghost of a smile push into her features, it feels humorless, “How can you possibly say that?”

 

“I've seen a lot of terribly 'mothers' Snow and you are nothing like them. Hell you already mother The Flash. I wish there was something I could do for you.” His words are hot against her skin and his closeness suggests one very primal thing he could do for her. His eyes keep glancing down to her mouth and for a second she thinks he's going to kiss her. When the second passes and she finds herself unkissed she's disappointed. She wants him to kiss her. She wants something, someone, to drown in tonight. To lose herself in and he seems so burning hot and willing. Her life was stagnate, this was it, all she would ever have, what was the harm in find solace in another's body?

 

Even if that body was Heatwave.

 

He wraps her up in his arms and it's so warm and he smells vaguely of cinnamon under the notes of whiskey.

 

She clings to him, fisting the back of his shirt, pulling herself closer still as he pushes her into his chest.

 

It's hot and safe but it makes her ache.

 

They stay like that for a long moment with him letting her cling to him like a lifeline. He rubs a hand across her back in a clumsy but still comforting way, presses soft barely there kisses into her hair and she pulls away from him.

 

“Take me home.” She tells him.

 

“Where do you live?”

 

“Not my home.” She tells him and something darkens in his eyes as he nods.

 

"I'll pay our tab. I'll be right back." His eyes drop to her mouth but he doesn't kiss her. Not yet. Not with the promise of the rest of the night on the table. Mick slips out of the booth and with red eyes and a heavy heart she stuffs the paperwork back into her purse.

 

A night with Heatwave won't fix anything but it would at least give her something else to fixate on for the night. Possibly also the morning and on and off for about a week, a month maybe if she lets Cisco know.

 

“Dr. Snow?” A familiar looking woman steps up to the booth with a nervous smile, "You might not remember. I'm Tanya? From the adoption agency?”

 

"Oh. Hello." She wonders if she looks this awkward around all the people she's rejected or if she's making an exception since Caitlin is so obviously wrecked by their decision and about to comfort herself in the arms of a super villain.

 

"If we had known you had a fiancée Dr. Snow..."

 

"Fiancée..." She follows the woman's eyes to the engagement ring still on her hand. Tanya shakes her head, embarrassed, "It shouldn't make a difference." Caitlin can't help but growl.

 

All this time this was the problem. She was a single parent applicant?! There's a rage boiling in her now.

 

"It shouldn't, but it does. If you resubmit your paperwork with his added information I'll be able to push you through." The woman tries a shy smile.

 

"You would?" The indignation in her falls flat at the prospect.

 

"Yeah, I thought your application was great..."

 

“Who's this?” Mick's voice is a rumble of hostility and she can only imagine what he must think. That this woman has talked her out of sleeping with him maybe.

 

In a way she has.

 

She puts a hand on Mick's arm and as disarming a smile as she can manage as she tries to drag her brain out of the whiskey swimming pool she's made of her head.

 

"Mickey darling." He raises an eyebrow at her but let's her pull him back into the booth, "This is Tanya."

 

“Mmm..."

 

She sets his arm on the table and threads their fingers together, sitting so close she can feel all of him pressed against her side. She sets her other on top of theirs displaying the sparkling engagement ring.

 

"She's with the adoption agency." She tells him, hope swelling in her chest. He had said he wanted to help her right? She looks at him trying to silently convey the situation to him, "She's going to push _our_ application through."

His eyes grow wide at the _our_. She squeezes his fingers under her hand.

 

Mick doesn't say anything, just stares through the tiny timid woman across from them for a long moment before a sigh falls from his mouth and he visibly relaxes, "That's such wonderful news." He turns to her hot hand on her face turning her towards him, her breath is caught in her chest staring into his eyes, she wanted an adjective and her drunk mind supplied the simple but apt pretty.

 

Was he going to kiss her now? Right in front of this woman, was this about the sex they were not going to have anymore or was this about selling the fiancée thing. She didn't know. And when his mouth crashed against hers she didn't rightly care why he did it.

 

He pulls away from her quickly, before she can do much more than reciprocate. She doesn't get a chance to make it deeper, to pull him under with her. He just kisses her hard and firm and happy as if they kissed all the time and he was just so happy. He pulled away from her and she followed. She wishes she didn't see the smug look on his face when he moved back in to press a horrifyingly chaste kiss to her before turning to Tanya.

 

Tanya asks him what he does and she eyes his CCFD jacket hanging off the booth and supplies her with, "Retired. He used to be a fire fighter." She rubs her hand against his shoulder as if trying to calm him, “there was an incident.”

 

She falters and with a barely audible sigh he breathes life into her story.The fire that burnt him is brought to vivid life with his tongue, she watches his eyes grow darker with the telling of this fictional fire that had claimed so much of his body.

 

Something in her own heart flickered when he turned to her and expressed a sweet love that she still cared even though he was damaged. How she still said yes. How he was looking so forward to being a house husband.

 

Nothing he said sounded too outlandish, too unreal, everything had just a little bit of pessimism to cut the edge from the fantasy he wove around them.

 

"But we should get going if you want to wake up early and redo your application." He tapped her on the nose and unwrapped them from each other. Standing and shaking Tanya's hand, “This means so much to her – The fire took a lot of things from us... I was so worried. Thank you.”

 

Caitlin feels like crying all over again. She bites her lip, widens her eyes and gathers her things.

 

When she slips out of the booth Mick wraps an arm around her shoulders and leads her out of the bar.

 

She isn't sure where they are going, if he takes her to his place she wouldn't argue for a second. Not after what he's done. Not after what he's given her.

 

She twists the engagement ring around her finger and thanks Ronnie for getting something so bright and shiny.

 

They walk like that down the street, down a side street and she finds herself pressing into his warmth. She could walk like this for days.

 

They turn another corner and his arm drops from her and he steps away from her.

 

“That the fuck was that, Snow?” His voice is a grumbling rage of noise. It feels like slap in the face after the soft, caring, meaningful words he had spoke in the loud bar. They suddenly feel a lot less meaningful.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Mickey? Darling? I'm not your fiancée. You know they check that shit right?"

 

"I panicked. I'm still drunk, leave me alone!” She yells back trying to make her words sharp, “You said you wanted to help!”

 

“Yeah by fucking, stealing something shiny, maybe setting the agency on fire. Not being roped into The Longest Con!”

 

“I an not asking you to raise a kid with me, Mick!”

 

“Really? Because it sure as fuck looks that way. I knew you were lonely, Snow, but I figured you'd just fuck me not fuck me over.”

 

The words burn, strike at her core and without putting much thought into what she's doing, she snaps her arm back and sends her small fist straight into his big stupid head.

 

She hits him right in the eye and she feels a little better at the yowl of pain that spills from him as he bends over, his hands over his eye.

 

“What the fuck, Snow.”

 

“Eat a dick Mickey.” She turns sharply on her heel and storms away into the night.

 

She didn't need him to do this. She'd use his name, she'd have Cisco or Felicity doctor some files and BAM. Fake fiancée.

 

Her blood cools down by the time she's back in her apartment.

 

She stares at the empty room, across from her bedroom. The boxes of children's furniture and books. She grabs a pillow from her room and lies down on the hard floor staring up at the little plastic stars. They are in the exact right place astronomically, she and Cisco had worked really hard on that but their perfect placement gives her no comfort.

 


End file.
